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WWT
World Wrestling Tensions (or WWT) is a professional wrestling promotion based out of Buffalo, New York. While its company headquarters and most of corporate staff remain in Buffalo, the WWT talent and management travel the world, performing around 250 shows per year Formation and Early Months (February 2009 - July 2009) For many years, former wrestling megastar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson had wanted to start his own wrestling promotion. He took numerous movie roles no matter how degrading to try and build up enough funds to start a company. However, Johnson soon realized that it would be quite impossible for him to obtain the funds needed to start a wrestling promotion. With this realization, Johnson set out to find corporate partners. Almost all refused. Most companies despised professional wrestling and wanted no part in creating another outlet for it. The companies that were interested in sponsoring were reluctant to allocate the money necessary. Finally in February 2009, Midway Games agreed to provide the money to start a company. The agreement went as followed: 1. Midway Games would become the owner of the wrestling promotion. 2. Dwayne Johnson would be in charge of operating the promotion. 3. Midway Games would receive exclusive rights to merchandise sales, such as video games, clothing, toys, and other miscellaneous goods. 4. Midway Games would receive naming rights to a championship within the promotion. 5. Dwayne Johnson would receive enough funds to hire 10 wrestlers for a 12 week trial period, after which Midway Games would evaluate performance and proceed to give funds accordingly. As soon as the deal was signed, Johnson established five championships for the company . Many saw this as far too many championships for a 10 person roster, but Johnson refused to trim the number of titles. He then proceeded to hire his ten performers, and founded WWTs flagship show: Salvation. Johnson then did something controversial at the time. He had his roster fight for the titles before the first show started. This gave him champions heading into the first ever Salvation. Salvation was a success, albiet small one. It was performed in front of 26 people in Randall High School in Buffalo, New York. However, the fans went home very pleased with the show and felt that the company had potential. After that, numbers rose. Salvations 2 and 3 were performed in from of 35 and 42 fans respectively. Then Salvation 4 drew an atounding 176 people. It was the final Salvation before the company's first PPV, Hardocre Heaven. Harcore Heaven was sold for $5 per home, and it was the first ever televised WWT event. The show recorded 220 buys, an icredible number for such a small promtion. In addition, 500 fans showed up to the event, completely cleaning out the limited merchandise brought to the event for sale. The event was a success in another way as well, a company star was born.... Following Hardcore Heaven, Element X emerged as the clear fan favorite on the WWT roster. Dwayne Johnson realized this and also realized that in order to maximize the value of WWT, he would need a rival for X, preferably heel so that the fans would get behind X even more. Johnson got his wish after Salvation 5. X had just finished his final match against Grandmaster Lane for the WWT World Heavyweight Championship, once again defeating Lane without a problem. As the two shook hands, a group of men charged the ring and pinned X down while their leader destroyed Lane. The Leader was Wolfpac, a cold calculating idividual, and he proved this during the assault on Lane. X could only watch as Pac hit Lane with multiple weapons and finishers, before finally punting Lane in the neck, severing the spinal cord and effectively ending the young man's career. This started what many consider the first great feud in WWT. As proof of the feud's popularity, when X and Pac finally faced off 6 weeks later at Mayhem, over 7,000 people showed up in attendence and 5,600 bought the PPV at home for $10. WWT had arrived. Glory Months and War with UBW (August 2009 - April 2010) For the next few months, WWT thrived. It got a television deal in July of 2009, a mere three months after its founding. After signing a tv deal, WWT had the financial flexibility to beef up their roster like never before. From May to September, WWT went from 10 competitors to 44 competitors. Having a large roster meant that the company could now fire talent that were causing problems or were just untalented. Johnson was thrilled with how well the company was doing, but felt it had become too much for him to handle. Johnson stepped down as CEO of WWT Corp. and was replaced by Kurt Angle. Under Angle, the comapny soared to new heights, becoming the #3 wrestling promotion in the world. However after the Agony PPV in August, Angle shocked the WWT world by firing Element X. This act led to X setting up a rival promotion with Paul Heyman called UBW. This led to an all out war between the two companies that lasted 6 months (see: WWT vs. UBW), culminating with WWT's victory in the 8 on 8 elimination chamber match at the New Horizons PPV. Talent Overhaul, Decline, Hiatus (May 2010 - July 2011) Following the near defeat victory over UBW, new WWT ceo Eric Bischoff fired most of the WWT roster. This included some of the few remaining WWT Originals such as Mike. Bischoff also ended WWT's partnership with SPEED t.v. (WWTs home since July 2009) and went to TNT. It was here that WWT witnessed a decline. With only 3 WWT Originals remaining, and only WWT wrestlers overall who had been with the company since before Bischoff, the fans started losing interest. WWT experienced a brief resurgence in August and September of 2010 laregly due to the efforts of Hassan and his feuds with Wolfpac and Stinger8. WWT then lost 2 of its 3 remaining originals when Wolfpac retired to become a father and Truth was fired for breaching the company's drug policy. This left Stinger8 as the only original and the newcomers were largely useless, with mediocre matches and flat promos. WWT was then sued by a joint force of former WWT and UBW wrestlers for a breach of contract. WWT lost millions in the deal, and lost even more fans because of it. Just before the company collapsed, Midway Games forced Bischoff to resign. Midway realized that the company's days were numbered, and didnt bother finding a replacement. Angle also resigned, wanting to jump off the sinking ship. He was replaced by Arn Anderson. Who had some good ideas, but simply didnt have the time or funds to make them happen. On May 20th, 2011, Midway Games announced that WWT would be going on a hiatus while they regrouped. No set date for a return was set, and when Midway sold the naming rights of Salvation and almost all of its PPVs to TCW, a return seemed destined to not happen for a long time. Return, lawsuits, talent search, and new begining (June 2011 - September 2011) Following a nearly 3 month long hiatus, WWT returned. Despite the fact that TCW had folded due to a talent strike, the TCW owners refused to sell the majority of former WWT naming rights back to the company. Because of this, new WWT CEO Ryan Hassan (formerly known as Stinger8) decided to push on with a new show in a new direction. Instead of Salvation, WWT weekly programing was known as Rush! Hassan managed to secure most of the former PPV naming rights through a lawsuit in June of 2011. Armed with this, Hassan set out to aquire talent. To truly prove he was starting a new era, Hassan retired from professional wrestling. His reasoning was that he couldnt run a company while competing in it. Hassan announced that his final match would be on the first ever Rush! brodcast, live in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. He asked 5 of his previous rivals to face him for this one event, the only caviat being that they would not be hired in the reincarnated WWT because Hassan felt they truly needed to start from scratch. Jason Calaway refused, claiming that Hassan hadnt tried for his TCW promotion, so he was not going to help Hassan. Truth refused when he was informed he wouldnt be getting hired. Mark Andrews (Wolfpac) was uncertain about returning to WWT since he felt he had left on such a high note and did not want to risk losing that for only one match. Hassan (Ryan's older brother) had been deported back to Afghanistan for suspected terrorist activities. And The Chosen One could not be contacted in any way. Saddened but determined, Hassan decided that he would face any of his new talent that came out to the ring during the first Rush! The day before Rush! #1, Hassan received a petition from over 10,000 fans stating that they wanted former WWT talent to be brought back. Confronted with this, Hassan relented and signed previous WWT Superstars Mark Andrews (Wolfpac), Ashley Andrews (Mistress), Tank, Enforcer, Skinner, Super Psycho, and Lawrence Lashley. He stuck with this small group because he still wanted WWT to be mostly about new talent. On Rush! #1, Hassan (who was once again refering to himself as Stinger8 now that WWT was back) formally stripped all previous title holders of their championships (most of whom werent even signed to the company anymore). WWT officially renamed the Midway Championship to the HYPE Championship since Midway games no longer had any shares in the company. All new champions were crowned, and Stinger and Andrews finished the night off by stealing the show one last time. TW announced that Rush!'s rating was a 2.5, incredible for who was on the card. While the ratings predictably dropped off after the first episode, there was an undeniable truth in the world of professional wrestling: WWT was back. New Face of the Company, Return to the top (October 2011 - present) On Rush #1, the WWT World Heavyweigh Championship was won by a 20 year old man known simply as Brock. Brock was a behemoth: 6"6 and 345 pounds of ruthless agression. Brock tore through his first opponent for the title, and longtime fans of WWT were reminded of Element X in early 2009. From here, Brock steadily started to gain legions of fans. Also like Element X, Brock reached his apex in popularity when he started feuding with Mark Andrews in November 2011. After defeating Andrews at Fall Brawl, the fans went completely behind him. This was a surprise to management because Andrews was a WWT Original and had been a fan favorite since the company returned from hiatus in July. This caused Andrews to go heel and caused Brock to fill the void left by the retirement of Stinger8 from active competition. The company reaped the benefits of having a new face of the company, getting a huge amount of merchandise sales and ratings that rivaled their 2010 reseurgence during the war with UBW. Fans were loving WWT again because aside from Brock and Andrews having an amazing main event feud, the WWT HYPE Championship was being fought over constant 4-5 star matches. Komodo was proving to be one of the greatest to ever hold the title, and on February 15th, 2012, he proved it by breaking Hassan's record reign of 206 days. While Komodo lost the title two days later at Bitter Winter, he still finished with the record setting reign of 209 days. In the tag-team division, T&E reigned supreme over every team they faced. While their sheer dominance may have been off-putting in some promotions, WWT fans, as always, enjoyed T&E just as much in 2012 as they did in 2009. The Harcore divison had somehow gotten even more extreme with the addition of the sadistic Scarecrow to the roster. This devious cretin was able to even get into the mind of Super Psycho, and the two had disgustingly brutal matches reminisant of Psycho's battles with Mike. With a once in a lifetime roster, WWT soared to new heights in populariy. After Fall Brawl, they consistantly started beating TNA again, and after Harcore Heaven 2012, they passed WWE in ratings. They have since been battling back and forth with Monday Night Raw for ratings supremacy.